By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes slipped again in April, edging down 1 point to 69. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) edged down one point to 69. The HMI has slipped 1 point in each of the last three months. The builders’ group said however that the Index remains “on firm ground.”
Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the HMI gauges its new home builders’ perceptions of both the current market for newly built single-family homes and expectations for those sales over the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than as poor.
